Week 25: Ciudad Real, La Mancha District
6:28 AM
Monday- It was a pretty normal pday. Very rainy and cold. It’s been like that lately almost every day but that’s alright. We spent it with the best member Kriss and her kids and we played some games. Then that night we went and taught an investigator name Feliza and she’s from Bolivia. She had been taught before but the missionaries eventually dropped her so we thought we would try again. She has doubts about the Book of Mormon but we told her she can’t just say she has doubts about reading it without reading it. We gave another and told her to read it while she is gone for a month to visit her country. I guess we’ll see what happens.
Tuesday- Man this day was just too awesome. We set three baptismal dates!! The first was Ronald for the morning. He is from Venezuela and he’s about 26 and really he is just a guy who wants to follow God. He really loves all that we tach him and he understands it very well. His goal for baptism will be Feb 27. Then that evening we met with Manuel from Dominican Republic, and we had a member join us. The first thing he asked us was, “what do I need to do to be a member of this church?”. Last week he had a long interview with the branch president and he changed incredibly. He had word of wisdom issues and he completely got rid of those issues. He said he is willing to follow every other commandment. His only problem is Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. We told him that to get an answer to know if the Book of Mormon is true, he must read and pray about it. He said to give him a week to do it and he will really try. We set his date for baptism for Feb 27. Then we had another lesson with Alicia from the Dominican Republic, and one of the best member (and recently returned missionary) Carlos joined us. We taught her the restoration, but we didn’t feel like she was quite understanding everything, but luckily Carolos was there and really helped. After the lesson, he told us we need to take things a lot slower with her and try to use as many visuals as possible when teaching her. Things like videos and drawings. But we invited her to be baptized during the lesson and she said yes so the goal is for her baptism on Feb 27. Feb 27 will be a really cool day of things work out the way they should. You find out in the mission pretty quick that it’s never that easy. Then that night our zone leaders who are in Malaga drove 4 hours up to come stay with us because we had a zone meeting the next day.
Wednesday- We had a zone meeting today…kind of. It was more of just a district meeting but the zone leaders were there. That’s the problem with being in La Mancha, we are completely isolated up here. My district includes in Ciudad Real, Valdepenas, Puertollano and Alcazar de San Juan. Oh and it’s just one companionship per each city. We also have a couple missionaries that live in Alcazar, the Croshaws that try to strengthen the branches in each city. Peurtollano only has 3 active members, so it needs some help there. My zone is us in La Mancha and half of Malaga, but we never see the rest of the zone because we are pretty isolated up here and Malaga is 3.5 hours away by train. But I love my district a lot. The majority of missionaries in our district are South American so that is cool. Then that night we visited our less active family Nieves and really tried to get her to come to church, but she’s a little difficult. Then we taught English class and one buy who comes is a professional magician and he showed us some way cool stuff.
Thursday- We did weekly planning in the morning. Then we went and taught Ronald and the lesson went so amazing. It was one of the most spiritual lessons I have had in my mission. We taught of the plan of salvation and it was so awesome. He said he still hasn’t prayed to know if it’s true so we really emphasized the importance of that. Then we went and helped one of our member’s friends with some English and also shared a message with her. Unfortunately she doesn’t have that much interest in learning but that doesn’t stop us from sharing something.
Friday- Today was awesome. In the morning we met with our ward mission leader Luis who is literally the king of swag. I don’t know how to describe him. He is really just the swag master. Then we went to prepare the branch party that we had that night. I’ll just get straight to the party. It was way fun and we had 15 investigators at the party!! Half were members friends and the other half were our investigators. Our investigators had so much fun and we got some new ones as well from the party so it was a huge success. Our top three right now, Manuel, Ronald and Alicia just had a blast and were dancing an participating in all the games, and brought food. I love them all and so does our branch. They were just like best friends so it was a huge success.
Saturday- This morning we spent the whole time cleaning the church because we promised the branch president we would. Then that night our whole district (as in the district of missionaries) went to Alcazar de San Juan to see the elders baptism there. We were able to do this because The la Linea district (as in both the district of branches in La Mancha and all of the missionaries of La Mancha hasn’t had a baptism in about 2 years. It’s kind of a bit deal here. It was a really special baptism and the whole story behind it was a huge miracle so it was awesome.
Sunday- Church was good. I gave a talk in sacrament meeting about service. Ronald, Alicia and Manuel were all there. The best part was priesthood because Ronald was participating as if he already was a member and had some amazing comments and stories. The teacher even asked him what ward or branch he was from and it was pretty great for him to say he wasn’t a member but wants to be. Then life just was tough after church. First of all this whole week has been freezing and it has rained every single day. We didn’t have much set up so we had to be out in the streets most of the time and it was the coldest I have ever felt here. The wind was crazy!! We also had an investigator call and say if we ever passed by his house again he would call the cops. He went to church and was really offended that the members had invited him to a party because that seemed really inappropriate to him to have a party when we are followers of God. I guess to him that means we can’t have a party of little games and EFY music. I don’t mean to complain but the whole situation kind of frustrated us a lot because we had really tried working with this guy. So to have that happen was just annoying. But mission life is like that. Lots of ups and downs and sometimes a huge corkscrew and you just never know.
Well life is good right now. I love being up here in La Mancha and Ciudad Real. I have such a solid district of some amazing elders and it’s just fun serving here. It’s awesome serving a mission. It’s the best!!
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